


Through the Wilderness

by Siyah_Kedi



Series: Magical Mystery Monster Tour [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Frank discussions of virginity, Legends, M/M, Multi, Unicorns, Witchering, virgins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28722477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siyah_Kedi/pseuds/Siyah_Kedi
Summary: Jaskier and Geralt overhear talk of a monster attacking travelers and go to see if they can hunt it down. It ends up hunting them instead.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Magical Mystery Monster Tour [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109828
Comments: 10
Kudos: 105





	Through the Wilderness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueJayCalling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueJayCalling/gifts).



> I'm not dead! I started another fic a while ago, got inspired to write original fiction instead, floundered a bit, and then wrote this in a day. Updates on the other project will follow now that I've got my groove back.
> 
> Many thanks to the beautiful and talented [BlueJayCalling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueJayCalling) who is a delight and a treasure. You should check her story out when you're done here.

"Fuck off. Unicorns aren't real."

"I heard the story first-hand, straight from the desert man what seen it himself! I saw the tears in his robe where he barely escaped the beast!" 

"Goats," said the sceptic, and turned the subject to the quality of the beer. Jaskier turned his head curiously. 

"What do you think, Geralt?"

The witcher raised one eyebrow. "About unicorns?" Jaskier nodded. "Not real," was Geralt's proclamation. A loud _ha_ from the other table told them they were being eavesdropped on, but as they'd both been avidly listening in on the conversation, themselves, neither could take offense. "Not anymore," Geralt amended. 

"What?" 

More faces turned towards them. Jaskier tilted his head the other way. "You can't just leave it there," he said. "Go on."

"Legends," Geralt scoffed. "But there's lore on how to kill them. They can only be approached by a virgin, for example, and while they're being petted is the only time they're vulnerable." 

Jaskier popped a piece of carrot into his mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully. "If there's witcher lore, it just means they were real once," he said. 

"They all died out during the conjunction. Nastier creatures took over." 

It might have ended there, except they were approached by the very same man who claimed to have been attacked. 

"You, Witcher!" 

Geralt paused, inhaled deeply, and turned to face the man hurrying up behind them. 

"You take coin for hunts, yeah?" 

Jaskier, long accustomed to reading between Geralt's silences, noticed the twitch in his jaw that gave away his aggravation. Geralt was going to hear him out, maybe even take a cursory look, but really thought his time was being wasted. 

"Yeah," Geralt agreed at last. "What is it?" 

"Shadhavar," was the response. Jaskier's ears perked up. This was a word he'd never heard before. 

"Tell us all about it," said the poet. Geralt was a silent wall beside him. 

"Bigger than a horse," the robed man began. "Black and white, and one huge horn protruding from it's head. You might call it a unicorn."

Geralt rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Unicorns don't exist," he said. 

"So you won't take this hunt?" 

There was a moment of visible struggle, in which Jaskier couldn't say which way things would honestly turn out. The good - good? - part about chasing after a fictional monster was that he'd probably be allowed to follow Geralt while he did his thing, and at least pick up some new details that could go into his next ballad. 

He generally didn't worry too much when Geralt went on these hunts, but first-hand details would go a long way towards authenticity. It had been a while since his last popular song. 

Geralt glanced over at him, so Jaskier grinned brightly. "I'm going, of course. Can't turn down the opportunity to see a… Real live unicorn, after all."

"They eat meat," was the nervous addition from their erstwhile employer. He tugged at his robe until he could hold up a jagged, torn edge. "And the bite must be cleansed immediately, or infection." 

"We'll be fine," Geralt said shortly, and stalked off, heading for the stables. Jaskier shot an apologetic look at the man. 

"Sorry about him, no one hugs him enough. Stick around here, and we'll catch up to you when we've something to report." He hurried after Geralt, who was just as likely to leave him behind as to wait for him. 

* * *

They were an hour off the road when they found it. Or it found them. Almost ten feet tall from the tips of its ears to the bottoms of its cloven hooves, the muscular, horse-shaped monster was everything promised and more. The horn alone was nearly five feet long, and emitted an eerie wail every time the animal exhaled. It's white face had black angular markings that made it look like a playing card, and the shaggy mane didn't stop at the neck, but continued down the entire length of its back until it merged with the tail. It was horselike, superficially. The shadhavar opened its mouth and let loose a thunderous braying cry, shaking leaves off the trees. A curiously musical undertone left Jaskier's ears ringing and his vision blurry. The last thing he saw clearly was the horn being lowered as the beast prepared itself to charge. 

* * *

He came to where he'd fallen. Geralt was a few feet away, lying motionless in the dirt with his sword still clutched in his hand. There was no blood anywhere, and the only sign of the creature was the deep hoof-prints left behind. Jaskier hauled himself to his feet, shook off the lingering disorientation, and staggered over to Geralt. 

"Geralt," he said. His voice came out a nasally croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Geralt!" 

The witcher jerked awake, examined his sword, Jaskier, and himself in that order, and then pulled himself upright. "Are you okay?" 

"Am I - _I'm_ fine," Jaskier said, a touch hysterically. "What happened to you? Are _you_ okay?" 

Geralt scowled down at his sword. "Fine," he muttered. "It didn't touch me. I think." He touched two fingers to his ear and shook his head. "The noise…" 

"I think we'd better go and get some more details out of our friend," Jaskier suggested. Geralt didn't argue, which told the bard more than he needed to know about Geralt's condition. 

* * *

They'd had most of it already. Likes virgins, eats meat, emits a musical noise from the horn to subdue its prey. Why it hadn't eaten them while they were insensible on the ground, no one could figure out. Geralt had called Yennefer away from whatever the sorceress usually busied herself with in order to confer with her, and found she had nothing useful to add. 

"Unicorns?" She scoffed. "They're a myth." 

"Perhaps you'd like to come have _your_ eardrums blown out by the giant mythical horse next time?" Jaskier suggested waspishly. There was a tinny ringing in his ears leftover from the shadhavar's sonic assault, and he couldn't seem to get warm. Yennefer, instead of continuing the barbed exchange, looked curiously into the fire instead. 

"Virgins can subdue it," she mused. "Good luck with that, Geralt, there isn't a virgin to be found in a hundred miles, I'd wager. Not one old enough to warrant being brought on a monster hunt." 

Jaskier opened his mouth, sucked in a breath, and closed it again so hard he bit his tongue. 

"Something to say, bard?" Of _course_ Yennefer had noticed. She seemed to make it her personal mission to make him miserable at all times. It was bad enough that Geralt had called her in on the hunt in the first place. 

"Not a thing," was what he meant to say, but she wiggled her fingers at him and the truth tore itself free. "I'm a virgin, technically." 

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by the drunken laughter of the other patrons, and the crackling of the fire. Then Jaskier was treated to the rare and unsatisfactory sight of two sublime, majestic, timeless, near-omnipotent beings laughing themselves silly. 

"You?" Yennefer knuckled a tear of mirth out of one eye, her makeup somehow remaining flawless despite the intrusion. Geralt was doubled over and trembling with the force of his merriment. "Your reputation precedes you at every turn, Jaskier. I would bet nothing less than a hundred gold coins that there's a passel of bardling bastards across the length and breadth of the whole continent."

She sat straight up and paled. "Wait, you're serious." Geralt stopped laughing abruptly as well, eyeing her. They were all aware of the spell she'd used to make him say the gods-awful truth out loud. 

Geralt turned to him with a fierce look in his gold eyes. "But I've seen you," he said, somewhere between perplexed and bemused. "Behind barns and under counters." 

Jaskier's face flamed. Apparently he hadn't been as subtle as he'd thought. "Any real man knows there's more to pleasuring a woman than just sticking your dick in and thrusting."

Yennefer was eyeing him speculatively, and Geralt was looking as if he'd prefer the floor to open up and swallow him whole. Since Jaskier was already praying for that to happen to _him_ , he figured Geralt's chances were low. 

"Everything makes sense now," Yennefer said, suddenly smug. "It didn't eat Geralt because he smells like you, and it didn't eat you because you're still magically pure."

Geralt and Jaskier spoke over each other. "I do not -" "I am not -" 

"Relax, I said magically and I mean it. Not spiritually, not physically, just that magic has Rules, and one of them says that if you've never stu-" she paused. Her mouth worked silently for a moment. "Never been joined at the hips," she covered for herself, an odd little moue to her lips. "Either giving or receiving, then the Rules of Magic say you have a purity that ...non-virgins have traded. It's a trade, you see. Virgins, and I cannot believe I'm telling you this, have that magical purity that gives them access to a more childlike power. Once you've had sex, you trade the childlike power for a more mature potential. Neither," her eyes flashed with the force of her sudden temper. "Neither is better or worse than the other. You're not less for being ...I can't believe I'm saying this about you, much less to you. You're not less for being a virgin."

Jaskier gaped fish-like for a beat. "Thank you?" He didn't know whether to be amused or insulted. 

Yennefer sniffed. "So, the unicorn -"

"Shadhavar," Geralt and Jaskier corrected her in unison. 

"Sha-whatever," Yennefer continued, "Will be attracted to you, and you're also the only one who can get close, am I remembering this right?" 

Suddenly Jaskier was picturing himself trying to reach out and pet the enormous horse-shaped demon, and felt the blood drain right out of his face. "Sweet gods, I'll die." 

"You won't," Geralt said, pinning him into the seat with his citrine stare. "Yennefer and I will be close behind you. You don't actually have to do anything except ...keep it calm." 

"Good, yeah, good. Just what I was thinking. Let's send the _bard_ after the _ten-foot **demon horse**." _

Yennefer drew herself upright in the chair, which was when Jaskier realised she had been leaning towards him. "I never pegged you for a coward, bard." 

Whatever truth spell she'd laid on him was still going while his mind tripped over her choice of words. "You could, you know." It was pure Jaskier bluff and bluster, flirting automatically, and he was absolutely mortified to realise he might mean it. Geralt was looking at them both as if they'd lost their minds somewhere, while Yennefer had that calculated interest in her eyes again. Like maybe she'd been looking at him like scum on her shoes all this time only to find out the scum was actually an enticing treasure. He looked into her violet eyes and wondered how he'd missed the fact that she wasn't actually all that bad under the barbs and snark. Geralt interrupted the moment with a cough. 

"As we were saying," he said, obviously embarrassed and just as obviously trying to bluff and bluster his own way through it. "Yenn and I will be nearby, and all you have to do is make sure it calms down enough for us to get close." 

Ah, right. Virgin. Unicorn. Fuck. 

Jaskier yanked his eyes away from Yennefer's, and found himself meeting Geralt's. The witcher was looking earnest and supportive, somehow, which was weird because his face hadn't actually moved from the slight frown he habitually wore. He wondered what it would be like to be between them - he had a visual memory of what their coupling was like, and his brain helpfully supplied it again in vivid detail. Funny what you could remember after almost dying terribly in a pool of your own blood and then thinking you'd witnessed the horrific death of your only friend. Then reality reasserted itself and he forcibly reminded himself that there was no room for inexperienced bards between them. They were bound by destiny and djinn wishes, and he was a simple man. 

He looked at Yennefer again, for lack of a better place to put his gaze. 

"What are you thinking about?" 

He felt the twist of her magic in his throat, and answered honestly. "I'm going to die." 

* * *

"I'm going to die dismally, appallingly, and _tragically_ and there will be no one to do the actual story justice!" Jaskier shrieked. It was well past sundown and they were back in the shadhavar-haunted woods. "This was the _worst_ idea anyone's ever had in the entire history of bad ideas!" 

Yennefer raised her hand, casting the light from the tiny bespelled flame she held a little further into the trees. "He's going to die because I'll kill him myself, soon," she promised Geralt quietly. Jaskier heard her anyway, and then heard the snapping of a tree branch underfoot. He whirled around, looking for the familiar looming horse-head with a massive, tree-like horn branching from it. Nothing made itself known, and he glanced back at his unconventional protectors. 

"Go on ahead a ways," Yennefer told him. "Don't go beyond the light, though, or we might not reach you in time." 

Jaskier swallowed convulsively. He wasn't a coward, but he wasn't going to deny that walking into the dark forest at night, deliberately using himself as bait to lure out a flesh-eating monstrosity, was enough to make him shit himself. Not that he had. He'd made sure to go before they left the inn, in fact, in order to avoid soiling himself with any indignity, regardless of whether he walked back out of the forest or not. The light seemed to follow along with him as he walked, although when he looked back again, the witcher and witch were out of sight. The light seemed sourceless and everywhere, and whatever she was doing, he was grateful for it. 

The soft whicker came out of the darkness ahead of him. Jaskier froze. Suddenly it was there in front of him, just as large and imposing as he remembered. It looked softer in the gentle yellow light of Yennefer's flame. The shadhavar tossed it's head and nickered again. Jaskier recognised the sound only from years on the road with Roach. This wasn't an alarming bugle, or an attack. It was happy to see him. 

Both Yennefer and Geralt had looked at him as if he'd lost his mind when he suddenly bolted for the stables earlier, but suddenly, his mad idea to bring a handful of sugar cubes out with him didn't seem quite so foolish. Jaskier swallowed heavily, and, moving slowly, reached into his pocket and withdrew a few of the cubes. He held them out in his palm, fingers flat, his hand as far from his body as he could physically reach. The shadhavar whickered again, stepping daintily forward, oddly light on its feet for such a large creature. It nosed at the sugar in his hand, then lipped it up as gently as Roach, sucking loudly. Jaskier squeezed his eyes closed. A gentle, eerie music drifted past him. 

_Please hurry_ , he begged silently. _Before it decides to eat me!_

Unlike the previous encounter, the music brought no disorientation or pain. He heard the gentle plodding of hooves against dirt - he could almost pretend it _was_ Roach in front of him, if he ignored the weighty sense of mass and the crackling energy that surrounded it. A whuffle, and then the enormous head was pushing into his shoulder. His knees, already weak with terror, gave out and he crumpled to the ground. 

Instead of a fierce kick or a toothy bite, the shadhavar tossed it's head again and knelt down, pressing it's cheek into his thighs. Hardly daring to believe his own audacity, Jaskier laid his hand on the creature's nose, and stroked it. The tuneless music got louder. His hand looked tiny and delicate against the broad face. 

_I'm sitting in the woods after dark with a man-eating monster in my lap._

Sometimes, his life with Geralt was too unreal even for songs. But _oh!_ What a glorious melody this would be. Provided Geralt and Yennefer got their asses in gear sometime before sunrise. He didn't know how long the magical purity of virginity was supposed to be able to tame the monster, but it felt like he'd been out here a while and his legs were going numb under the weight of it. 

Anxiously, he withdrew another couple of sugar cubes, and fed them to the enormous creature. The horn _thwacked_ into his ribs, and he swallowed the yelp. He'd almost certainly have a bruise there in the morning. He heard a scuffling noise behind him, the light grew brighter for a moment, and then in a blinding flash, the shadhavar was gone and he was blinking spots out of his vision. He could just barely make out the figures of Geralt and Yennefer, one standing with his arms crossed despite the sword hanging loosely in his grip, and the other smirking in apparent victory. 

"Took you long enough," Jaskier grumbled. 

"Geralt decided he couldn't kill it after all," Yennefer said, sounding as smug as she looked. "'It's just a horse,' he said. 'Like Roach. I can't kill Roach!'"

"I didn't say that," Geralt groused. 

"So what did you do? Where is it?" 

"Your equine friend is now happily living on top of a mountain far away from here and any more traveling caravans," Yennefer solemnly promised. Her eyes sparkled with humor in the glowing light she still held. 

Jaskier stood up and his ribs screamed in agony. Damn, that _hurt_. The least it could have done was healed him. Didn't unicorns do that? 

Back at the inn, Yennefer ordered Jaskier to strip. She eyed the bruise along his flank, then skimmed a hand over it. The bruise vanished under her touch. Jaskier shivered with the sensation. 

"So," she said. Behind him, Geralt was holding up the covers invitingly. 

Jaskier decided that taming unicorns was overrated anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> I find it really fascinating that cultures all over the world have their own unicorn legend. The shadhavar named here is from Persian myths, but you'll also find references to the Karkadann in Macedonia, Re'em in Hebrew legends, and Qilin/Kirin in east Asia. 
> 
> You can find the reference picture (actually a karkadann, but I liked the word shadhavar better) [here.](https://koritsimou.tumblr.com/post/640152404911898624/found-this-on-google-and-am-posting-it-for) Hopefully. Let me know if this link doesn't work. 
> 
> And the title is from Madonna's "Like a Virgin." 
> 
> Someone help me tag this thing.
> 
> EDIT: now the first part of a series!


End file.
